Everyone has heard of chat rooms. They have been around for a long time. Lots of people have never gone into one, though. There are different kinds of chat rooms on the Internet. You can go to the public chat rooms that run in your browser at sites such as Yahoo.com and chat with anonymous strangers. You can go to chat rooms at some of your favorite Web sites and talk to like-minded people. Those are tame. There is still a Wild West on the Internet for chat, and it is called IRC, short for Internet Relay Chat. This is one part of the Internet that no advertisers, sensors, or corporations have been able to get to. Getting onto an IRC server and then into a room, or channel, is easy in Linux. You need to learn a whole host of new commands when using IRC. A great Web site to start to learn more about IRC is http://www.irchelp.org. If you want to, you can just go in and chat, but you need a few commands for the fun stuff, such as emoting. You might not know what emoting is, in terms of chat. Let's think of it this way, in terms of Shakespeare. Sonnet 78 by William Shakespeare (in the Language of English)
Sonnet 78 by WillShakes (in the Language of IRC Emoting)
Most of the IRC channels you find are about technology-related subjects, especially UNIX and Linux. It's where the geeks hang out. In a search, you will see channels on every subject you can think of, but they do tend to be more sparsely populated. With all the geeks in IRC, it can be a good place for help when you run into a Linux problem. If you go to IRC for help, just make sure you are in a channel that is appropriate for it and go in with a thick skin. There can be some colorful and insulting characters lurking around. |